My Life and Other Catastrophes by Rowena Mohr

Author:Rowena Mohr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000, book
ISBN: 9781743433010
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2008-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

august

Monday 1 August 5.17 pm

Brendan came back to school today. You should have seen the way people treated him – like he had some kind of infectious disease or something. It’s amazing isn’t it? I mean, if he’d broken his leg everybody’d be making jokes and lining up to sign his cast and stuff – but because it looks like his mum has a pretty serious ‘mental’ illness, they’re all terrified that maybe Brendan’s got it too and is going to start acting all crazy.

Mum was exactly right. I overheard her having a little chat with Brendan this morning before she dropped us off at school and she was warning him that the kids were going to treat him differently and be a bit strange at first but that he shouldn’t worry and just go on doing what he normally does. She said that people don’t understand mental illness at all and they get really scared by it but it’s just the same as any other kind of illness really. Usually it’s treatable and most people manage to live fairly functional lives. The problem is when it’s not diagnosed – like with his mother – or when there’s not enough resources to treat all the people who need it.

That is so true! I mean, Brendan’s mum has obviously been sick for a while and nobody’s realised that there’s a problem until she flips out completely. Imagine if she’d actually hurt him? Not because she really thinks he let his brother drown but because she was so ill that she’d got it all wrong in her head?

Anyway, Brendan needn’t have worried about the other kids giving him a hard time because of course Saint Rami was there to protect him – like he was one of her underprivileged Africans come to visit among all the horrible racist school kids. Seriously, it was vomitous. And then when I went up to say hello, you know, to try and show a bit of solidarity, she basically told me to get lost, making some lame excuse about her and Brendan having to do something in the library. The witch! I’d like to know when Brendan became her personal private property?

Tuesday 2 August 8.45 pm

Good news and bad news.

The Drac is back! I must have said the right thing after all (and let’s face it, that’s a first for me) because Brendan’s agreed to do the show again. Dicko was so happy he practically kissed him (eeuuww!) but his good mood didn’t last long. He made us do a complete run-through of the show from start to finish and it was a total disaster! We were there for hours because no one could remember their lines or where they were supposed to be. It was horrible. Dicko was yelling at everyone and getting all red in the face. He even yelled at Mrs Parisi but she took him off down the back of the theatre and gave him a talking to and he calmed down after that.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.